Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are often restricted to operate in empty airspace where there is no risk of mid-air collisions with manned aircrafts, and in geographical areas where a potential crash-landing would not cause any human casualties and cause minimal infrastructural and environmental damage. Operational area restrictions are normally set out by governmental and/or international border requirements, regulations and laws.
When a UAV escapes or is about to escape from its permitted operational area due to system malfunction, or upon detection of unsafe conditions within its permitted operational area, it is of great importance that the UAV can be remotely terminated, for example by shutting down the UAV engine. Although operating more or less autonomously, a UAV is typically connected to a UAV control station (UCS) from which an operator can terminate the UAV remotely by overriding its autonomous control system.
The requirements on the termination system allowing an operator to remotely terminate a UAV are rigorous. The termination system should be designed to avoid that the UAV is terminated without due cause but, most important, it must be extremely reliable such that termination of the UAV always is possible when the need arises.
In addition, it is important to minimize the weight and size of the components constituting the termination system. This is particularly important as regards the part of the termination system that is located in the UAV since an increase in UAV size and/or weight typically increases fuel consumption and/or deteriorates the UAV flying capacity. It is also of great importance that the termination system is equipped to withstand hostile takeovers to prevent intervening parties from transmitting UAV termination commands with malicious intent. Another aspect that should be taken into consideration